64HDD is a low-cost alternative to purchasing
a Hard Drive for your Commodore™ (C64, C128, Plus4/C16
or Vic20).
64HDD works with "images" of real Commodore disks
and tapes. These images are created by transferring the data
from a real disk/tape to a standard file format. Typical disk
images are known as D64 files. Typical tape images are known
as T64 files. There are many programs available that will
let you transfer your data, and many websites that host archived
D64 files.
The 64HDD software lets you connect your Commodore computer
to the LPT port of a PC using a standard X1541
or XE1541 transfer
cable. For a faster connection a special PwrLoader
parallel cable can be used to speed things up by as much as
30-50times.
Once configured, your Commodore can have access your data which is safely
stored and backed-up on the PC without having to fiddle about with dozens
of floppies and old floppy disk drives.
In addition to using your PC's hard disk, you can access its CDROMs, USB drive,
Real-Time-Clock, etc. The PC system can be any standard 386/486/Pentium
etc. 64HDD runs under MSDOS (or a DOS-Box on some Win9x systems)
but may not run under Windows 2000, NT or XP unless they have
an alternate DOS boot configured or a Direct-IO driver. If
you are stuck using a non-DOS system such as Win2k/XP/NT or
Linux, 64HDD is also avaible on bootable CD-ROM.
64HDD supports D64, D71, D81, T64, LNX images and also the
Native MSDOS file system. The MSDOS mode even supports Commodore
16-character filenames in Win95 LongFileName format if the
LFNFILES plug-in (v1.55
upgrade) (125kb) has been installed. You can even command the
PC's 3.5" floppy drive to read /write 1581 disks using Womo's 1581COPY.
The full freeware download includes utilities and test software,
as well as 64Xplor (a cross-platform file Explorer for C64/C128/C16/Plus4/Vic20
machines and works with real and 64HDD drives).
GEOS64 is supported via a custom kernal disk driver. Utilities
are included in the driver download to provide time and date
support as well as a disk ShortCuts tool for jumping between
D64's containing your GEOS collection.
You can compare 64HDD to the other
HDD options (31kb, in PDF format), or follow these links
to to see a comparison of LOAD
or SAVE times of
64HDD on my 386sx33 against other standard drives.
To download the freeware version click here
. To read about the Professional version click here
.
